How Much Does Website Hosting Cost?

The search for a new host for your website can be a detailed endeavor. To complicated
things, if you are looking by word of mouth, you might even find that many experienced
site operators are accustomed to not passing on recommendations, for various reasons.

There are a number of economical hosts and these shared
hosting plan providers give an allocation for megabytes/gigabytes of disk
space and bandwidth for each monthly period.
HostGator offers a basic plan at $3.96 per month claiming unlimited disk space
and transfer. While GoDaddy offers a $7.00 a month plan that includes 150 gigs
of disk space, mysql databases and unlimited transfer. NThosting offers a $7.95
budget plan ($4.95 if annual) sporting unlimited disk and traffic usage.

Note that with the shared plans in the starter-priced range, the type of SSL's
applied to the domain normally come from a shared certificate
and these are not private certificates per se, though there are exceptions. Also,
while many claims are made with regards to bandwidth, guaranteed uptime and usage,
some trial and effort is to be expected. And, it is not unusual to
get assistance with the tranferring of your files over, if you are currently
with another host.

As you begin to pay more, host-dependent, the more that generally comes in
the way of:

MySQL databases and their number of, as many basic plans allow for a single database

Support for scripts like php and possibly asp pages (less common)

The creation of added FTP accounts for file access and transfer

Access by modified methods such as by sFTP and SSH which is normally more secure.

Enhanced support, not just a ticket system, but up to 24/7 phone support.

The option of dedicated ip's

Hosting for sites in the cost mid-range include Successful Hosting
who offers a $20 a month plan with 20 GB of disk and and 400 GB bandwith. Pair
Networks and their suite of plans go from $10 to $50 a month and these include
dedicated ip's and phone support.

Typical Options / Overages

Often with a bare bones account, and even with higher-grade ones, added
resources are charged for on an incremental basis. Frequently this makes
sense rather than upgrading the whole plan to another.

Bandwidth - in the range of $0.20 to $0.40 per gigabyte.
Disk Space - not as common a request as transfer, this is roughly $1 to $1.50 per GB.

Other choices include guaranteed RAM, upgrades on bandwidth for handling
increases in traffic and a charge for dedicated ip's that land in the range of $1
per $2.50 a month.

Additional Considerations

When getting the new host plan, it's not always customary that the setup fees,
which are typcially near $25, be waived. You may need to put in a special request
to make this happen.

It's important to know what is included in the price, like:

Whether the site is going on a Windows or a Unix based server

The control panel: the two main kinds are cPanel and Plesk
( whether you've had experience with either )

What if any shopping cart/ ecommerce or checkout solution are provided.

What exact additional fees are incurred for exceeding bandwidth and storage
requirements - some hosts do freeze accounts when limits
are reached, and until they are paid.

The more 'managed' the solution is, the more the website operator tends to be
satisfied. You will be relying on the companies technical know how, their expected
response time and reliability track record(s) including uptime - for which it is nice know what
constitutes the report of a 'downtime' period.